Coconut-Mango Malva Pudding

September. The air changed this week — not cold, not even close, we are in Alabama and cold does not come until it's good and ready — but there is a different quality to the light now, a sideways angle to the late afternoon sun, and the nights have dropped to where you want a sheet. Fall is knocking. I am always glad when it arrives.

School started for the children in the neighborhood and the rhythm of Bernice's Table shifted accordingly — fewer families on Tuesday evenings, more grandmothers coming alone. I notice the way the demographics of our table change with the season, the school calendar, the church programming. Summer is families and children. September is grandmothers and widows and the men who live alone. I make sure the portions are generous in September because I know some of these people are eating their best meal of the day at this table.

I began test-baking the German chocolate cake this week. Travis's wedding is less than a month away and I want this right. The components are the coconut-pecan frosting, which goes between the layers and on top, and the chocolate cake itself, which wants to be tender but not so delicate it crumbles when you slice it. My first test had the frosting right but the cake was slightly dry. I've adjusted the recipe — more buttermilk, slightly less flour, a little longer in the cooling time before frosting. The second test is Thursday.

Destiny and I talked on the phone almost every day this week. She is not anxious about the wedding so much as she is determined that it be done right, which is a distinction I understand. She asked about Marcus — whether I thought he would have liked Travis. I said yes, immediately, because it was true and she needed to hear it without hesitation. Marcus would have stood in that kitchen and said Travis was solid. He would have shaken his hand too long, the way he did with people he respected. I think Travis would have liked that. I think he would have understood what it meant.

All that testing this week — adjusting the buttermilk, checking the crumb, thinking about what coconut-pecan frosting ought to feel like between your fingers before it ever touches a cake — had my mind living in that particular sweetness that coconut brings to a baked thing. When I needed something for Bernice’s Table on Thursday, something warm and generous for the grandmothers and the men who come alone, I turned to this coconut-mango malva pudding. It has that same quality I am chasing in Travis’s cake: tender, not fussy, with a richness that tells the person eating it that someone thought about them. That’s all I ever want from something I put on the table.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 35 minutes | Total Time: 55 minutes | Servings: 9

Ingredients

For the pudding:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons apricot jam
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup fresh or thawed frozen mango, finely diced
For the coconut sauce:
3/4 cup full-fat coconut milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x9-inch baking dish with butter and set aside.
Mix dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
Beat eggs and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar together with a hand mixer or whisk until the mixture is pale and slightly thickened, about 2 minutes.
Add wet ingredients. Stir in the apricot jam, melted butter, and white vinegar into the egg mixture until well combined.
Combine batter. Alternately add the flour mixture and milk to the egg mixture in three additions, beginning and ending with flour, stirring gently after each addition. Fold in the diced mango. Do not overmix.
Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish and bake for 30–35 minutes, until the top is deep golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs. The pudding will pull slightly from the sides of the pan.
Make the coconut sauce. While the pudding bakes, combine the coconut milk, heavy cream, butter, and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir until the butter melts and the sugar dissolves completely, about 4 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla and cardamom.
Soak the pudding. As soon as the pudding comes out of the oven, use a skewer or toothpick to poke holes all over the surface. Slowly pour 3/4 of the warm coconut sauce evenly over the hot pudding, allowing it to absorb for at least 10 minutes.
Serve. Spoon generous portions into bowls or onto plates while still warm. Drizzle remaining coconut sauce over each serving. Serve as-is or with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream alongside.

Nutrition (per serving)

Coconut-Mango Malva Pudding — A Sweet Warmth for the Table We Set with Love